BEES EXIT JPT

Barnet are out of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy after being beaten 1-0 by Leyton Orient at Brisbane Road last night.

Head Coach Mark Robson caused something of a surprise when he selected an unchanged team from the side that had played well and drew at Southend United at the weekend.

A boisterous Barnet following of 209 supporters saw both sides have a number of chances in the early stages but there were few actual strikes on target.

Ricky Holmes was again a causing problems down the left and he delivered a number of tempting crosses from the flank, but rarely was there a Barnet player in the six-yard box positioned to capitalise.

The only goal of the game came in the 25th minute when good interplay down the Orient left led to Dean Cox delivering a ball into the middle that fell to the impressive Moses Odubajo and his crisp shot was soon nestling in the back of the net.

Soon after going behind an opportunity fell to Clovis Kamdjo but his effort went over the crossbar.

David Mooney had the ball in the net with half-time approaching, but his effort was disallowed for offside, although video evidence did subsequently make a case for the goal to have stood.

With just a one goal margin the Bees went looking for an equaliser in the second half and Mark Byrne came closest to levelling the scores.

First he nearly took advantage of a poor back-pass and then Holmes set up the midfielder only for his goal-bound effort to hit a defender and the chance had gone. This was probably Barnet’s best chance of the night and it was no surprise that Holmes was again involved.

Orient were shading the cup-tie and were delivering crosses into the Barnet box at a regular rate, but in truth rarely troubled Graham Stack.

Stack himself did push forward for a corner in the closing moments, but the O’s were able to see out the tie and the match.

The focus post-match quickly moved to Saturday and the very important fixture against Plymouth Argyle at Underhill.